The composer we meet here is certainly no fragile, invalid dreamer. Malcolm Frager is a bold Chopin player with strong fingers and wrists to uphold his ebullience of spirit.
Whereas the shorter works come from a 1979 release (''Malcolm Frager plays Chopin''), the B minor Sonata is new to the British catalogue—and for the most part reveals him at his most sympathetic. Only in the finale does over-forceful projection and drive result in some loss of finesse. Personally I would also have preferred a deeper calm in the Largo, marginally too fast for my own taste though full of romance. The two opening movements are finely shaped and timed, with unhurried tempo in the first to enhance the maestoso qualifying its allegro. Musicologists will notice a few small textual variants in its course; we're not told what edition is used.
The Frager I liked least on the disc comes in the Tarantelle, taken fast enough to sound merely gabbled, with little care for tonal refinement or detailed inflexion. Even the Herold Variations seem to need a rather more delicate elegance and charm to distinguish them from the hack sets churned out by nearly every itinerant virtuoso of that day. In the Op. 6 Mazurkas Frager goes all out for 'local colour': they burst with temperament. But I enjoyed him more in the simpler lyrical relaxation of the Contredanse—as also in the Andante spianato. As for the ''Heroic'' Polonaise at the start of the recital, this performance is challenging enough to hold back any invading army. But be prepared for the fact that above a certain dynamic level the recorded tone, never describable as the warmest or most mellow, can grow a little cutting.'